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| After the race, competitors Mike
Nelson, left, and Jim White, Wenatchee, share a
hug. (World photo/Mike
Bonnicksen) |
WENATCHEE —
Darren Emmons pulled into the Confluence Technology
Center parking lot Saturday morning for what was billed
as the world’s first solar
drag race and wondered where the race was.
Half an hour to race time, and
nobody was around.
“Us west-siders burn easily,”
Emmons, 45, explained as he lathered sun tan lotion on
his arms, talked about being at the Renewable Energy and
Sustainable Living Fair the previous weekend in
Wisconsin and described himself as a computer software
engineer and “solar nerd,”
just come to watch.
He had driven from his home in North
Bend for the race sponsored by Chelan County PUD and the
Port of Chelan County.
By the 11 a.m. race time, Emmons had
been joined by four other Western Washington solar-power buffs and Charles
Jewell of East Wenatchee and his brother, Jack, of
Entiat.
All spectators. But where was the
show?
“There’s a really good hot rod show
down at the park, so all is not lost,” said Ken Nielsen,
65, Kirkland, referring to the 27th annual Wenatchee
Valley Street Rods Apple Run car show in nearby
Wenatchee Confluence State Park.
“Guys stuck in the past and guys
stuck in the future,” remarked Andrew Maxwell, 43,
Vashon Island, of the two events.
“This should be a big deal. People
should care more about electric vehicles than
petroleum,” said Gray Purdy, a Seattle software
designer, before giving up and leaving.
At 11:10 a.m., Mike Nelson, of
Shoreline and founding president of Solar Washington, a chapter of the
American Solar Energy
Society, arrived in a pickup carrying his solar-powered go-cart and driver,
Ben Heely, 16.
“You can operate a complex
technological society on spring breezes, sun beams and
rain,” Nelson commented as he and Heely assembled the
cart.
“What’s exciting to me is the first
place in the world that can go to a completely renewable
energy economy will be Washington because we have the
Columbia River hydro system and it provides us with the
world’s largest battery bank and it’s a lot safer than a
lead-acid
 |
| Ben Heely, 16, hooks up
connections on a solar-powered vehicle for what
was billed as the world’s first solar drag race,
at the Confluence Technology Center Saturday.
(World photo/Mike Bonnicksen)
|
bank,” said Nelson, who
was born in Wenatchee.
At 11:35 a.m., PUD energy service
engineer and race coordinator Jim White arrived. He had
been waiting nearby on Olds Station Road, which he
planned to use for the 1.4 kilometer race course. But
after arriving at the center, he decided Technology
Center Way would make just as good a course.
White went home to get his solar-powered car, an extremely
light, low cart with one wheel in the front, and about
10 feet of solar panels, two
wheels and a small seat in the rear.
Other enthusiasts arrived, including
Sambhu Kundu, a solar-panel
research scientist from the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory of Battelle in Richland.
Kundu said it’s pretty hard to
visualize solar cars powerful
enough for highway use.
But White said delivery trucks have
room for panels and don’t need a lot of power for local
use.
The big race started just before 2
p.m.
Mary Meyer, Bellevue, dropped the
starting flag. With no batteries, both vehicles took off
slowly.
They passed a small, cheering crowd
at the finish line, White in 46.5 seconds, Heely in 1.17
minutes.
“Aren’t you guys proud,” White’s
wife, Laurie, said to their children, Dawson, 7, and
Denali, 11.
“He didn’t really practice, so we
didn’t think he would win,” Denali said. “But now we
think he did pretty good.”
“We had a serious failure of our
flux capacitor,” Nelson joked, referring a device of
that name in the movie, “Back to the Future.”
“Our intent was to arrive at the
finish line shortly before we started, but we went
backward in time, instead of forward. That’s why we
looked slow,” Nelson quipped.
To estimate his speed, White had
another vehicle clock him while he took a second run on
the course. He said he reached 17 mph.
Then he took his strange-looking
contraption down to the car show in the park to give the
boys of the past a glimpse of the future.
Dan Wheat may be reached at 664-7150
or by e-mail at wheat@wenworld.com
